Answers, Mr Gove

When David Cameron came to power, he pledged to introduce an era of transparency to government. Out would go the dark arts, the spinning, the briefings and the poison that grew out of the toxic weeds of the Blair-Brown relationship.

Today, this paper alleges that a Twitter feed emanating in part, or wholly, from within the Department of Education is using its anonymity – when not dispensing perfectly reasonable policy analysis – to defame, disparage and damage political opponents and journalists. Contributions to the Twitter feed included taunting opponents about "mental illness" and retweeting remarks suggesting that a journalist had had a breakdown.

Are officials within Michael Gove's department sanctioned to deploy these tactics? Will he distance himself from the Twitter feed, or at the very least have it purged of this malevolence? Why have the representations of a senior Tory official about this Twitter feed been ignored by Gove's department for over a year? As a former journalist and defender of the press, is he happy for officials to be implicated in these attacks on journalists?

Time for some transparency, Mr Gove.

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